How The Caps’ Forsberg-For-Erat Deal Got Stressful And Sad

Most of you have lives, jobs, families and friends. For those and countless other reasons you probably didn’t spend Wednesday afternoon feverishly refreshing your Twitter feed for the latest NHL trade news. Luckily for you, I did the dirty work so you didn’t have to.

By now you know the Caps traded top prospect Filip Forsberg to Nashville for Martin Erat and Michael Latta. Had that quietly happened on a Sunday afternoon some fans would have been upset, but the way the announcement went down nearly caused a revolt at Kettler.

Here’s a look back at deadline day on the world’s greatest news source, Twitter.

As the clock sped towards the 3 p.m. ET deadline action around the league picked up. Columbus made multiple moves and then Roberto Luongo was pulled from the ice at practice sending all of Canada into a frenzy.

In America’s Hockey Capital, fans were resigning themselves to the fact that the Caps didn’t make a trade or sign Mike Ribiero to an extension.

Chatter changed to the required, “Trades can be announced after the deadline” disclaimer and resignation that GMGM took the day off. But it’s never that easy for Caps fans.

It started with rumblings that George McPhee would address the media at 3:30. Wait, why is he addressing the media if we did nothing? Just to explain that he likes the roster as currently constructed? No, there has to be a trade.

So the wild speculation began. Someone mentioned Buffalo and within minutes it was a Twitter fact the Sabres were our partner. It didn’t take long for everyone to agree that Drew Stafford was on his way to DC. But wait, what about Ryan Miller? OMG you guys, who did we give up for Ryan Miller?

3:30 came and went and still nothing from Kettler. And even worse no leaks.

The tone on Twitter began to turn from excitement to stress. Why is it taking so long? Did you hear that the Caps told local TV stations to get their anchors to Kettler for the announcement? That means it’s a huge deal, either a big name leaving or a monstrous name coming here.

As more and more people talked about potential heart attacks and lost production at work, speculation took a new turn. Nashville has yet to say they’re done for the day, David Poile’s dealing with Washington again. OK, that’s the team but who? Shea Webber! No, league rules prevent him from being traded because they matched an offer sheet in the offseason.

Then the news finally came, Erat to DC for Forsberg. And immediately the fans anticipation turned to vitriol.

It didn’t matter that we picked up a top 6 forward and were making a move to win now. We were losing one of our favorite future pieces and Martin Erat is not a big enough name to make Dan Hellie deal with rush hour traffic.

In the end, it was roughly 2 hours of mad speculation, stress and sadness. Pittsburgh probably made 3 better trades than this in the past week. Sadly, it was a Penguins that fan summed it up perfectly, comparing Erat to George Michael Bluth’s girlfriend Ann Veal.

That Pens fan actually perfectly encapsulates how retarded people are. Just because you haven’t heard of someone, doesn’t mean he isn’t good. In fact, he is really fucking good. And Forsberg is nothing right now except value, and likely inflated at that. EVERY SINGLE Caps scout voted in favor of the trade.

People are going to like Erat. A lot. Never cite a Penguins fan for anything ever again, except to prove they are worthless monkeys.

Let’s give them a chance. If this works, GMGM should keep his job. If we don’t make the playoffs and get into the second round, he should loose it for this. But that’s pretty much how GMGM stood at the beginning of the season anyway. As a friend of mine says about poker, “that’s why it’s gambling”. You have to take a chance sometimes.

A justifiably skeptical Caps fan would look at it more like Ted’s royally fucking up the team for what, TWO games of playoff revenue, now? Not selling high on a turkey like Ribeiro (and for that matter, a better player, like Semin) is inexcusable.

Caps management occasionally does things right but they do enough things wrong to ensure that this franchise will always come up short.

1. I had heard of Erat. It’s called a poetic license.
2. Point of fact, generally when someone isn’t known he probably isn’t very good.
3. Erat is objectively not “really fucking good”.
4. People are justifiably angry at the relative value of the return. To use my own “retarded” team as an example, the Penguins did not sacrifice any commodity as valuable (inflated or otherwise) as Forsberg. Despite this, Morrow and Iginla are unquestionably more valuable to a team than Erat. To suggest Caps fans shouldn’t be angry they did not receive more for a highly valued prospect is insane.

1. Great poem.
2. Generally, maybe. Always, no.
3. We can argue semantics, but Erat is objectively a top-6 winger who is objectively good offensively and objectively good defensively.
4. People can be angry but that doesn’t mean they are justified. People do not consider that, perhaps, Forsberg was just sold at his peak. People also forget about Latta.

Erat has never played full NHL season & has never hit 60 points. 31 yrs old, 2 more yrs @ 4.5mil cap hit. He is not objectively really good. And don’t trot out the defensive Nashville style. We aren’t so high flying anymore.

Also nobody is arguing Forsberg > Erat right now. It’s an argument about upside and mortgaging the future. If you’re so high on believing GM and Leonsis then you have to believe them when they originally said Forsberg would be a cornerstone of the future of the team.

It’s incredibly low of the Caps to trade Forsberg and then whisper to their media friends that they had soured on him. Its a lie intended to make them look better and they should have more respect for themselves and Forsberg to do so.

Erat hits 50 points every season – that’s a top 6 winger. He is also good defensively, as his underlying metrics show: he drives possession despite tough assignments and defensive zone starts. Show me a similar player who costs less than $4.5 million and I’ll show you a fucking unicorn.

I don’t have to believe jack shit that was “originally said.” People change their minds, new information comes to light, etc. Smart organizations don’t double down on a bad investment. Not saying Forsberg was, but when every scout approves the trade you have to wonder. If you think this is part of some malicious whisper campaign, I don’t know what to tell you.